Choices Remain
by Faye Dartmouth
Summary: One split second decision, giving himself up--he can save them this way, and it’s a redemption so powerful that he wants to cry and laugh as he bleeds out on the floor.


Title: Choices Remain

A/N: I'm sort of amused that an episode finally moved me to write. I don't expect it to be a common occurrence, but I'll follow it when it hits. This short little piece is a tag to TSRTS. Thanks to Deej for a super speedy beta. Title taken from the Switchfoot song "Living is Simple," for those who may be curious.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: One split second decision, giving himself up--he _can_ save them this way, and it's a redemption so powerful that he wants to cry and laugh as he bleeds out on the floor.

-o-

It's an easy decision to make.

Sam's life for his mother, father, even his brother. One easy sacrifice to save them all. There are no regrets with this. He's seen how beautiful his mother is. He's had his chance to make his peace with his father. He's even had the chance to fight side by side with Dean, just one last time, not quite like before (never like before) but closer than he's been in two whole years.

And truthfully, Sam knows the fact it's his family is just an added perk Sam doesn't deserve. His tainted soul is worth nothing, and even if it was a pair of convicted murderers, Sam's pretty sure this is still the choice he'd make. The only worth his soul has now is how many people he can save before he dies. How many people he can save to atone for the deaths he's responsible for.

Anna pushes something sharp into his gut, and his world erupts into pain. It sears through him, lancing through his abdomen and swelling up his throat. The sensation is strangely invigorating, the first honest emotion he's had in years.

He can taste blood in his mouth, sweet and familiar, and he knows there are worse ways to go than this.

The pain weakens his knees and he goes down to the floor. Dean calls his name, and Sam wants to say_ I'm sorry_, but it's a moot point when Dean can never forgive him anyway.

Still, he's sorry Dean has to see this again. He knows what it did to Dean the first time, and suddenly there's solace in their rift, knowing that maybe this time it won't hurt so much. Maybe this time, Dean will have Castiel and Bobby and he'll recover just fine. Maybe even be better off.

Definitely better off.

Sam's going to the floor, his body too weak to support him anymore. This is good, he thinks. This choice is right. His life is a long series of choices, some good, some bad, some selfish, some not, but each and every one of them has always turned out wrong. Living for vengeance, putting family first, choosing himself, choosing others--none of it has ever mattered. Jess still died, his father still sold his soul, Dean still got taken to Hell, and the world still ended. Good or bad, right or wrong, Sam's decisions have never been his own, _never_ in a way that counts.

This time, though, it has to be different. One split second decision, stepping in front of his mother, giving himself up--he _can_ save them this way, and it's a redemption so powerful that he wants to cry and laugh as he bleeds out on the floor.

He's fading, what's left of his life draining from him with a rush of adrenaline and a flurry of thought.

This is what it was like before, to die. A missing piece of his life, another choice taken from him. This is what it's like to do it for someone else, to die for a _reason_, and it's a warm, warm pain that overtakes him, overpowering him like a child succumbing to a mother's sweet lullaby.

The world is dim and Sam lets himself flicker into nothingness. His last thought, the only thought left, is the hope that Anna can spread him so far over the universe that neither Lucifer nor God nor Dean himself can ever find him again.

And then, it's over. Finally, beautifully, miraculously, perfectly _over_.

When Sam comes to on a motel room bed, stretched out and fine, it's a harsh truth. He sits up, fingers the bloody hole in his shirt and the fading scar underneath.

The disappointment hurts worse than dying, hurts worse than _anything_. It doesn't matter how he came back, it doesn't matter who did it. He's trapped in this life, trapped in a cycle of failure he can't escape from. Good decisions, bad decisions--none of it matters when he still ends up _here_, still ends up _like this_. A broken man who doesn't deserve to live but can't earn the refuge of death.

Dean arrives and rushes to him with something like relief on his face. He eyes Sam's shirt, fingers the blood, and slaps him on the back and says _Thank God_.

It's not long after when Castiel shows up and passes out, and Dean offers Sam a drink.

_Team free will_, he says, and gives Sam a look like he should know what Dean's talking about.

Sam raises his glass to meagerly support Dean's fledgling hope. It's a nice idea, it really is, that the choices they make matter, that they can determine their own destiny, they can decide their own fate in the end. And Sam drinks to it, a harsh and bitter swallow, and wishes he could agree.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't: Sam wonders if free will is only for those who aren't already forsaken.

But Dean believes it, clings to it, fights for it, and Sam won't take that away, even if Sam knows the ridged scar on his stomach and the empty ache inside of him that never goes away are compelling pieces of evidence to the contrary.


End file.
